scout did not want his friend’s elated voice to carry to their ears. The last thing he needed was to let Orisino hear about Sky Cleaver. Tavis stopped next to Basil. “Put your rod away.”
On the other side of the monolith, a boulder-lined pit corkscrewed a hundred feet down into the talus stones. The deep-worn channel of an ancient trail spiraled along the shaft’s jagged walls, jumping from one listing monolith to another like some sort of cockeyed fomorian staircase. At the bottom of the hole, the track slipped beneath a stone as large as Keep Hartwick and vanished into the crooked maw of a dark, yawning grotto.
“I thought Sky Cleaver was a lost weapon,” Tavis said. Although he still felt the cold, the scout was well- enough rested that it no longer made him stutter. “How come it has a guardian? Lost weapons don’t have guardians.”
Basil shrugged. “The stone giant histories don’t describe any guardians.”
Tavis gave the runecaster a sidelong glance. “Have you read anywhere that the axe is guarded?” he asked. “Saying yes won’t stop me from trying.”
Basil met his gaze squarely. “I’ve told you all I know.” The runecaster showed no irritation at Tavis’s mistrust. “This is for Avner. I wouldn’t hold back.”
Tavis accepted the reassurance with a nod. Avner had been half grandson, half accomplice to Basil. The runecaster would never lie on the youth’s name.
“Well, someone lives down there,” Tavis said.
“And he must be as old as the mountains,” added Galgadayle. Though it had been two days since the storm giant battle, the seer remained hunched over in pain. Despite the death of his own shaman, he refused to allow Orisino’s healer to mend his cracked ribs. “To wear a trail that deep into solid granite must have taken ten centuries.”
“At least ten centuries, but the path was not made by a single walker,” Tavis said. “The steps are too erratic. Everything from verbeegs to cloud giants has lived down there.”
Galgadayle raised a brow. “Then the axe can’t be here. Someone would have claimed it by now.”
“If they knew how to free it-which isn’t possible,” said Basil. “It took me three years and two new languages to learn the secret, and even I wouldn’t have succeeded without the library at Castle Hartwick.”
“That still doesn’t explain the trail,” Tavis said. “If whoever’s down there can’t retrieve the axe, why do they stay here?”
“Because a mortal doesn’t possess a weapon of the gods,” Galgadayle answered. “It possesses him. This is a bad idea, my friends. By recovering Sky Cleaver, we may do more harm than letting the titan keep the queen and her child.”
“I’m still going after it.” Tavis spoke softly, for he heard Orisino and the verbeegs clattering toward their location. “It’s the only way I can kill Lanaxis.”
“And after the titan is dead? What will you do then?” Galgadayle also spoke more quietly. “If you lack the strength to slay Brianna’s child, you have only unleashed two scourges on the world.”
“Perhaps not,” Basil countered. “The titan’s death will certainly alter Kaedlaw’s future.”
“You cannot change a person’s destiny,” Galgadayle warned. “You can only kill him before he fulfills it.”
“If you’re right, we’ll know soon enough,” Basil said. “Sky Cleaver can cut to the heart of the matter. After that, Tavis will do the right thing.”
“Assuming he can recognize it,” Galgadayle replied. “Sky Cleaver’s power will be a bright and shining thing. Even Tavis’s eyes may be dazzled by the glare.”
“Then you and Basil will help me see.” Tavis glanced over his shoulder at the approaching verbeegs. “And now we will discuss the matter no more.”
The three companions turned to await the exhausted verbeegs, who were laboriously pushing and pulling each other over the massive talus boulders. Only twenty-five of their number had survived the battle with the storm giants, and many of those suffered from wounds their shaman had not yet healed. Still, with the fomorians strewn in ashes over Cuthbert Pass and the firbolgs annihilated, even two dozen warriors were sufficient to give Orisino command of the war party. Tavis had tried to win back control by waiting for the two companies of royal footmen trailing them since the storm giant battle, but the crafty verbeeg chieftain had ordered his followers to keep moving, objecting that humans would only slow the company down.
Leaving his warriors to assemble at the bottom of the monolith, Orisino climbed to Tavis’s side. “What’s… this?” he panted, peering into the pit. “The Twilight Vale?”
“Does that hole look titan-sized to you?” Basil scoffed. “But it might be a shortcut through the talus field. Tavis will see, then come back for us.”
Orisino’s eyes flashed with suspicion. “Why don’t we all go together?”
Basil gestured at the pit. “Look at those steps. If the passage happens to be full of giants, or it’s a den instead of a shortcut, we’ll save a lot of trouble by letting Tavis scout ahead.”
Orisino considered the explanation, then said, “It sounds reasonable, but I want Tavis to say it.”
“I don’t have anything to add,” the high scout replied.
“All the more reason to hear it from your mouth,” Orisino insisted. At the base of the boulder, his huffing warriors were straining to hear the conversation. “Tell me this is a shortcut.”
“I don’t know that it is,” Tavis replied. “But if it’s full of giants, we all have a better chance of reaching the gorge’s far end if I’m alone.”
Orisino narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know who you hope to fool, but it won’t be me! You’re not going alone.”
“Fine,” said Basil. “You go with him. The rest of us will wait here until you two return.”
Tavis shot the runecaster an angry glance. “He’ll be in the way!”
“Perhaps, but Orisino’s suspicion is understandable,” said Galgadayle. “Take him along. It’s the only way to assure him you aren’t trying to desert us.”
“The two of you will make less noise than the entire war party.” Basil glanced at the exhausted verbeegs gathered below. “And I’m ready to collapse as it is. The last thing I want is to follow you into some cavern, then find we’ve wasted our effort and retrace our steps.”
This brought a hearty murmur of agreement from the verbeegs, and even Orisino looked as though he were having second thoughts.
Tavis turned to Orisino. “You’d better keep those flat feet of yours quiet,” he growled. “And I won’t wait for you.”
“You won’t have to,” Orisino sneered. “You’re not so strong anymore-or have you forgotten the price you paid for Munairoe’s healing?”
“I’ve strength enough to take care of myself,” Tavis replied. “It’s you I can’t defend.”
“I never thought you’d bother,” replied Orisino. “I certainly wouldn’t for you.”
Orisino went off to gather a few things to eat and a torch to light his way. Tavis simply asked Basil to paint a rune of light on the blade his dagger. While he waited for his friend to finish, the high scout peered into the shaft, studying the spiraling trail and its awkward steps. It did not take him long to decide that it would be safer, and faster, not to trust the cockeyed staircase. He removed a short length of white rope from his satchel and dangled it over the shaft.
“suordnowsilisaB.”
A silver spider climbed from the cord’s end and dropped into the pit, trailing a single filament of white silk. The strand began to sparkle and grow steadily larger in diameter, becoming as thick and sturdy as any rope. Tavis waited until he could see several feet of line lying loose on the shaft floor, then looped his end of the cord around a small boulder and tied it off with a secure anchoring knot.
Without waiting for Orisino to return, the high scout straddled the rope. He wrapped it around one hip and over the opposite shoulder, running the line parallel to his bow. He sat over the edge of the pit and rappelled down with slow, easy strides. As he touched bottom, the sweet, stale odor of old age wafted from the cavern mouth behind him. He kept a careful watch over his shoulder, but the grotto itself remained as silent and still as a crypt.
Tavis untangled himself, then took a few minutes to examine the area. The floor was covered with six inches of glassy ice, so clear that he could see a pair of yard-long bootprints frozen in the mud underneath. The tracks had been old and weatherworn even before freezing. They revealed little now, save that the giant who had left them was not very large and seldom left the grotto. There was no sign that anyone else lived in the cave, and that
